A Dangerous Slum Sprouts in the Desert

MECCA, Calif. â€”  In a sprawling shantytown between the Salton Sea and a toxic dump site, children play barefoot on dirt roads, running beside leaking sewer lines and piles of rotting garbage thick with flies.

Beneath their feet is broken glass; nearby, rusting machinery and wire. When the wind kicks up, they breathe dust and ash from an adjacent dump that contains elevated levels of cancer-causing dioxins.

Their families are mostly farm workers who live in hundreds of hot and dilapidated trailers, many of them missing windows and siding. When the water pressure dropped a week ago, some residents collected the few drips they could from their faucets. A year ago, their big problem was electrical fires caused by faulty wiring.

They call it “Duroville,� a haphazard village of roughly 4,000 people and dozens of unregulated businesses that has sprouted from the desert scrub in just two years. It was named for its founder, Harvey Duro, a husky member of the Torres-Martinez Band of Cahuilla Indians, who said he just may double the size of the place.

Whether anybody can stop him remains to be seen. Duroville sits on sovereign Indian land, beyond the reach of state and local laws. So, although one county official says it is the worst and largest substandard housing development of its kind in the region, there’s nothing she can do about it.

Federal authorities are trying to close down the makeshift town on grounds that it is a dangerous slum.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs in March ordered Duro to dismantle the entire operation. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week banned the burning of trash at the adjacent dump after discovering high levels of dioxins in the soil. This week, they are investigating reports that a sewage lagoon on the property has sprung a leak near the path children take to their school bus.

Although federal officials are trying to crack down, the dispute certainly will be litigated in court. A resolution could take years.

“When I went out there to take samples, I was stunned,� said EPA investigator James Sullivan. “I looked around and thought, ‘Wow. Places like this actually exist in America?’ �

Duro defends his enterprise as “an expression of my sovereign right, and I’m using it to make a better living.� Leaning back in a white plastic chair in his office, Duro, 56, who favors Ram football jerseys, athletic shorts, running shoes and sunglasses, added, smiling: “Heck, I’m thinking about doubling in size and maybe adding an auto mall.�

The community started to take shape in early 2001 shortly after Riverside County began enforcing health and safety codes at 500 trailer parks scattered across the Coachella Valley.

In a region where regulated low-income housing is hard to find, the crackdown forced some of the state’s poorest residents to seek shelter anywhere they could: in shacks, backyards, even chicken coops, county officials said.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Duro and associates dreamed up the idea of allowing people to haul their substandard trailers onto 40 acres of allotted Indian land off California 195 near the community of Thermal.

Initially, Duro envisioned a few dozen farm workers living in fixer-uppers on rented spaces along tree-lined lanes. He told other tribal members he would be “mayor� of the community, which would be a shining success story on what has been one of the unluckiest of the state’s 100 Indian nations. (Of the tribe’s 22,000 acres of reservation land, half lies beneath the Salton Sea, which was created after a Colorado River flooding accident in 1905.)

Almost overnight, however, hundreds of displaced Latino migrant workers leaped at the chance to drag their condemned trailers onto the property, which grew with astonishing speed and creative abandon. Tenants built additional rooms out of plywood and fencing and then sublet them to untold numbers of fellow workers.

“Harvey was shrewd enough to build a park that attracts people who are desperate and think they have no other place to go,� said John Mealey, executive director of the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition, a nonprofit group dedicated to building low-income housing. “He allows these people to live in substandard, unsafe trailers, which is disgraceful.�

“I’ve never seen any trailer park so large, or so risky,� said Leah Rodriguez of the county economic development agency. “But there’s nothing I can do.�

Since the landfill is located on Indian territory, it is beyond the jurisdiction of cities, the county, even the state.

Because it is virtually free of government regulation, costs are low, particularly helpful for business owners.

Duro conceded that the growth of his trailer park has raced ahead of his ability to provide its tenants with reliable basic services.

“I started something that has just exploded,� he said. “We were so far behind, and now we’re trying to catch up. We’re doing the best we can to make sure everything is safe for the people who live here.�

Flies clustered at the tattered trailer shared by welder Jose Rivera, 26, his wife Lourdes, 26, and their three young children. Their dirt yard was strewn with broken glass, rusting metal machinery and rotting garbage.

The area’s leaking sewer lines were built above ground and run past a swing set erected beside the 40-acre toxic landfill.

The Riveras, who live in a battered trailer rented by a relative for $250 a month, talked of one day “cleaning the place up and planting grass.�

“We like it here,� Lourdes said. “The kids go to public school. And you can do most anything you want. You can throw a party, or build a fire. No one complains.�

That is not entirely true. When the lights flickered out and the water pressure was reduced to a trickle in their cramped, hot trailer on a recent weekday, Francisco and Beatrice Lara took their gripe to the main office. But it didn’t do much good.

Nursing the youngest of her seven young children in front of a massive, rusty swamp cooler installed beside her small, red kitchen table, Beatrice Lara said, “It’s terrible living here. Sometimes the trailer fills up with smoke from the landfill. Other times the sewer ponds smell so bad I can’t stand it. Senor Duro says he’ll fix things, but he never does. When we complain he says, ‘If you don’t like it, move.’ �

“I’d give anything to get out of here,� added her husband, a construction worker who pays $330 a month rent. “But we can’t move to Mecca or Thermal because we don’t have proper immigration documents.�

Business, however, is thriving on the land. Five used-car dealers operate on the property, where they say lot rental rates are one-tenth of what they are in nearby Mecca and Thermal.

Standing beneath brightly colored plastic banners flapping in the hot wind at his car lot, Salvadore Hernandez boasted, “I pay $200 a month to operate here, and I don’t need permission of the county.�

There is also a coin laundry, a beauty parlor, a video rental outlet, a restaurant specializing in Mexican food and prepared lunches, a variety store, auto repair and wrecking operations, and scads of smaller niche businesses without permits of any kind.

Some sell churros, shrimp, tacos, soda, ice cream, fruit, vegetables or secondhand clothes out of their trailers. Others recycle paper and scrap metal, or provide baby-sitting for field workers.

Residents stream in and out of the dusty enclave, which is surrounded by wooden walls, along roads marked by signposts designed by Duro and named for his family members: Mary Lou Avenue, Lilian Street, David Street and Wiley Street. Duro’s own trailer, which is among the few without dented sides, is parked on Harvey Street.

“I’ve tried planting trees,� Duro said. “But they don’t do too good because the ground is too salty.�

Park Faces Fines

A week ago, the EPA warned the owners of the landfill next door that they could face large fines if they continued to burn such wastes as household trash, wallboard, plastic and tires. The practice, EPA officials said, has been discharging dangerous pollutants throughout the region.

This week, “we plan to dispatch a team of investigators to see how the trailer park’s sewer ponds are affecting the residents and their water supplies,� said EPA spokesman Mark Merchant.

“That whole area is a health nightmare,� said Riverside County Supervisor Roy Wilson, who has no authority over it. “And it is growing by leaps and bounds.�

The Torres-Martinez tribal council, of which Duro is a member, is divided on whether the trailer park should stay or go. Among his supporters is his brother-in-law, tribal Chairman Raymond Torres.

“We want him to stay and grow, but we want to see some improvements first: water mains, light poles, fire hydrants and a sewer system,� Torres said. “If he can add those things, he’ll be a success story for this tribe.�

Tribal member Scott Lawson, whose brother owns the landfill, agreed. “Harvey is one of the first successful businessmen on this reservation,� he said. “Let that poor Indian survive. Give him a chance.�

But for tribal administrator Mary Belardo, it is all a dismal reminder of a similar controversy that erupted a decade ago when sludge firms created a smelly nuisance on the reservation by allowing the buildup of 500,000 tons of dried, processed sewage on a 160-acre parcel of land.

“There are more and more families and children at risk every day,� she said. “We’ve been working with Harvey to see if he is amenable to cleaning it up, or shutting it down.�

Duro said, “No one is getting sick here, and we’re checking the well water.�

Ready to Expand

He is also preparing for expansion. Later this year, he said, he plans to pave the streets and add light poles. Eventually, he said, he hopes to build a sewer system shaded by palm trees that will also serve as “a bird sanctuary.�

Duro and his maintenance crews, meantime, are busy with more pressing matters.

A water pump failed a few days ago, and there were reports of blown fuses across the trailer park.

The phone system, which ties into an enormous tangle of wires near the park’s entrance, needed work.

“I just wish people would give me a little more time and money to make the changes they want so badly. It won’t happen overnight,� Duro said. “If they point things out, we’ll try and correct them. But if they close me down, I’ll say, ‘You want it, you can have it. But you have to clean it up and relocate all these people.’ �